Meeting 2008-10-14

The administrative meeting before fall break

Hardware

Now have two distinct focuses: old robot and new robot
Now have two not non-intersecting groups for the two foci
Old robot:
- Moving wheels to the center or near center
- Putting the motors on tracks for greater adjustability
- Possibly sinking the batteries for lower center of gravity
- Making a new camera mount (6 ft. high)
- Motors should be back on next week; the shafts will be flattened tomorrow
New robot:
- Decided that the "plate" should be an Al box frame with thinner Al on top
- Acquired a piece of Al for the frame

Will not be the normally scheduled electronics meeting tonight for lack of Auchter
Tasks have been assigned for work over break
- New motor controller boards
- New power distribution boards
- New killswitch board
- Old new motor controller controller will be moved to protoboard over the break
Conrad suggested using a dyno
Discussed encoders for the old robot -- no conclusions

Andy & co. working on line detection
- Drawing big rectangles around lines to fill in the gaps
Will be using GNU scientific library instead of libgoffice, removing some insane dependencies

Jay talked to a representative of Scott Jones enterprises about funding; nothing specific yet
Will be working on more documentation of new robot plans to show to external parties over break

Lab access paperwork has been submitted
Advisor search
- Apparently we technically still have an advisor in Dr. Berry, whom none of us knew about
- Will make a list of people with whom to talk